Get used to looking at those two words. Entering someone’s head space is becoming more difficult by the day. On line security is turning into global warfare. Everything will turn on permission based access to your audiences. We will all be fishing in smaller ponds and will have to know the particular ground rules of each. Cultivation and harvest in this atmosphere will need the deliberate targeting and long view by marketers.

Sales has always been about relationships in person or on line. In other words, trust. With all the scams being perpetrated out there, people’s identities at risk, fortunes made and lost, the cost of access is growing exponentially. Paranoia is justified in the current climate.

So how do we deal with this pinhole of opportunity? Like honey and vinegar, we must wrap our messaging in the type of information our audiences can value. That’s going to take some strategic thinking. I have been a proponent of on line permission based conversations that set up these lines of trust and confidentiality for years. This takes time. As Seth Godin would say “you don’t walk into a bar and ask someone to marry you”. Believe me, I’ve tried and it doesn’t work.

The courtship needs to take place over time so that the relationship can grow. But, like any human interaction, if you constantly talk about yourself and don’t notice verbal cues and signals from your intended, well, access denied.